What a busy, hectic time…
A gloriously large muddle of people, babies and animals centred in and around the kitchen. Yes, we do have more house than just a kitchen but it’s the kitchen that’s the heart and the room everyone tends to gravitate to. The orchestration of cooking and clearing in this ever moving, circulating throng requires the skill of a rugby winger speed-weaving up the field with the ball (this rugby analogy for all those following the world cup!).

the brothers’ first lunch together

We are now just eight. And…it feels quite empty!

first cousins meet

I have been entirely out of contact with the rest of the world for the last five days.
Maybe a good thing.
Yesterday evening I searched the various news sites and gleaned some rather depressing facts.
More foot and mouth, more culls of suspected and contiguous cases. Despite the ballooning of the protection zone vaccination teams have been asked to stand down and there’s been a lessening of restrictions in the East and South Eastern counties. Good, bad or dangerous?
Bluetounge is “circulating” in the country - and has evidently been circulating for quite some time. The NFU is now calling for “every non-scientific obstacle to the development and the deployment of a vaccine” to be removed
While DEFRA grimly asserts that “the current suspension is for work on ALL live viruses and it’s not the case that work could be allowed to restart on just one”. Any decision to prolong the hold up is being watched by over twenty thousand European farmers. Their animals are stricken with disease and their only hope, at present, is the stalled vaccine at Merial in the UK.

But there’s more to be joyful about than sad!
Just brief contact to let you know I’m returning to the land of reality and will be up to speed fairly soon!

waiting for normality to return!